Belltown Bent

Aesthetic engineering

Roxy Paine is concerned with beauty and the appreciation of beauty, in things which are often not necessarily considered beautiful. The principles underlying and guiding his work are expressed through the use of robotics, computers, and inorganic materials simulating and masquerading as nature.

Erosion Machine (2005), for instance, uses weather, shoe-size, and stock market data-sets to control the movement of a robotic arm as it sandblasts a slab of sandstone to create a miniature Southwestern landscape.

Weed Choked Garden (2005) uses stainless steel, thermoset plastic, and more to immortalize both natural process and neglect, as 13 species of weeds take over an untended vegetable garden in 88 sq ft of meticulously created chaos.

Split (2003), seen here being reconstructed on its new site, The Olympic Sculpture Park, is a hyper-real artificial tree manufactured from steel pipes and tubes of many diameters. It germinated from Paine's detailed analysis of the structure of trees, and grew from computer diagrams architectural renderings. Transplanted, along with Aspen, Ash, and Dogwood trees, Split will share carefully engineered space in a realm of art and nature, creating tension between, and testing our perception of each.

More on Roxy: AI interview |  SourceCode interview (video) | More trees: Breach | Bluff

All over the map

From Great Bend to NYC, by way of Omaha, SF Bay and Kansas City, Grammy nominated Karrin Allyson has arrived in Seattle, where she's halfway into her week-long stand at Demitriou's Jazz Alley.

When the Bent took in her June 2004 show at the same club, Karrin covered a lot of interpretive territory, applying her faultless phrasing and tough but tender touch to pop songs by artists as diverse as Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor side by side with the blues, ballads, and standards of Mose Allison, John Coltrane, and the brothers Gershwin.

This time around, according to Paul de Barros,  she is covering even more territory, with that "bouyant but lived-in voice of hers, especially with such an effortlessly swinging band," and is taking the audience along for the ride as she introduces new lyrics, by collaborator Chris Caswell, to instrumental works by jazz artists including Cannonball Adderley, Hank Mobley, and Wayne shorter.

It's not too late to head to Jazz Alley, and go wherever Karrin Allyson takes you.

Read Paul de Barros' review | Visit Karrin's website | Discover her music

300 year old wood

This is Brian Bromberg, a remarkable bass player better known for playing basses which plug in. Solid body, electric instruments with sound profiles more determined by electronics than age, air, and arching scrolls. In this moment, this lightening strike of unselfconscious creative absorption, he is bonded to a 300 year-old contra-bass made by 18th century Italian luthier Matteo Guersam.

But this entry is really about my friend, Hank. He is a relatively new friend. But not the kind you plug in. He's an old soul, a wood soul, full of air and warmth, and arching, aching sensibilities. The kind of friend you could talk with for hours, or not talk to for the longest time. Though I hope that time never comes.

Today he wondered on-line if I had abandoned the Bent (and some how wove his wondering into the much richer concept of the fabric of history) for some unknown reason, or yet-to-be revealed pursuit. The truth is neither, but his wondering is the reason for this reprise.

Perhaps it was Brian Bromberg who put me on pause. He moved me on this evening at Jazz Alley. He was lost in time, caressing a centuries-old instrument, in a way Guersam and his contemporaries could not have imagined. Somehow, in a flash of brilliance, Bromberg closed the gap, illuminating the infinitesimal moment separating a distant then from the ephemeral now. I have been basking in the glow. Thank you, Hank, for wanting to know.